Monday, July 31, 2017

I have read several articles recently about projects designed to
teach digital systems to think more like humans.For example one article was about teaching
chatbot systems to communicate empathy to humans.It seems ironic that we are developing
digital systems to think more like humans, while at the same time much of my
work is focused on teaching humans how to think more like and about digital
systems and their capabilities.Let me
explain.

Competitive battles in most industries today are increasingly centered
on digital technologies and digital strategies, and as a result, it benefits
leaders to have a deep understanding of how digital systems work, and how the
impact of new digital innovations will change the behaviors of customers,
competitors and partners.

There are many more items that
could be added to this short list, but I hope you get the idea.If we can agree that digital technologies are
fundamental to our future success, then we must understand them, or at least
their capabilities.

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

The winning trinity in competitive decision-making includes
people, ideas and things according to the renowned military strategist John
Boyd. Although competitive decision-making is not yet an Olympic sport, it affects
us all.Leaders (people) must become
trained experts at using digital technologies to make fast decisions.Leaders must use the right strategies and
methodologies (ideas) to make wise decisions fast, and they must collect the
needed data and analyze it fast enough using the best solutions (things).If any component of this trinity is weak, it
will be hard to compete.

In a recent survey of high tech VP level and above
executives that I conducted, few companies have a formal training program in
place to help develop their leaders to be skilled at digital transformation and
competitive decision-making.Most
enterprises are just rolling the dice on the skill levels of their leadership.Given the emerging challenges that digital
transformation introduces to a complex business, I would strongly advise
companies to invest in formal digital leadership development.

Some of the key goals of digital transformation are to speed
up and improve interactions with digital customers, and to be able to react
faster to new information.As digital
technologies (things) provide more real-time data, and real-time data analysis,
new strategies (ideas) for making real-time decisions must be implemented by
leaders (people) or their proxies.In
the future, more and more proxies involved in real-time decision-making will be
in the form of robotic process automation systems using artificial intelligence
and machine learning.

Any business process where there is a documented best
practice for how best to respond to various data inputs can be automated.As data inputs become more real-time, human leadership
decision-making becomes the source of latency in the system.I predict that decision-making will increasingly
be a source of competition, and that decisions will soon be divided into those
where there is a defined best option already which allows for rapid automation,
and those that have ill-defined options and require humans' capacity for
creativity to solve.

Friday, July 21, 2017

The renowned military strategist John Boyd taught that
people and institutions collect favorite philosophies, strategies, theories and
ideologies over a period of time, and then try to align the future to fit
them.The problem with this is the future
is rarely like the past, and trying to fit new data into old paradigms often
forces us to perform irrational mental gymnastics, which leaves us farther from
the truth.

Our resistance to change and unwillingness to question our
beliefs in the face of mounting evidence, leads us to analytical and execution
failure. A more productive habit would be to continuously review our mental
constructs to find out how to modify our interpretations to align with new
evidence.This action, however, goes
against our human nature that seeks stability and resists change.We see the consequences of these challenges
weekly as we read about companies (especially retail) failing as a result of
their resistance. In the future, developments in artificial intelligence and machine
learning will have the potential to help us overcome many of our own mental
weaknesses that cause us problems in our pursuit of truth.

In the digital era, our ability to change our thinking
becomes even more critical as it must happen at a faster rate.I remember when updates to an enterprise’s
mobile apps required all users to bring their mobile devices into the office to
get them loaded and tested.This was a
slow, tedious and expensive process.Today, as we all know, this can be done worldwide instantly and for very
little money through cloud based app stores.Digital transformation equals speed and accelerated change.

In a world of integrated digital platforms and systems, new digital innovations can impact markets instantly and competitors must be able to react.

The bottom line - one of the biggest factors determining the
digital transformation winners of tomorrow will be the brains of leaders –
their mental constructs.Can executives
and boards look at new evidence and innovations without biases, resistance to
change and prejudices, and grasp how economies, industries, markets and
competition will be impacted?Can they
learn about new digital innovations, understand the breadth of the impact, and
develop new business strategies based on the new realities? Can they overcome
themselves?

It is quite the irony that digital winners will be not
simply those with the best digital technologies, but those that can best
overcome their own human brains.

****

I invite you to watch my latest video on digital technology trends.

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict, connect with me on LinkedIn or read more of my articles on digital transformation strategies here:

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

I came across the brilliant blog site of Futurist Frank
Diana this week. In one of his most recent articles he discusses the
concept of combinatorial nature. He states, "We
are seeing exponential convergence across the areas of science, technology,
economics, society, ethics, and politics. The combinatorial nature of
an overwhelming number of building blocks drives an accelerating intersection
across these areas." As an expert Lego player, I can appreciate the
concept of building blocks, and the near infinite number of combinations these
blocks can be used to form. The idea that we have now reached a critical
mass of digital building blocks, and that we will now experience exponential
growth through the combinatorial nature of them is compelling.

The World Economic Forum also describes the
future in similar ways, “We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will
fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its
scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything
humankind has experienced before... Billions of people are now
connected by mobile devices, with unprecedented processing power, storage
capacity, and access to knowledge. And these possibilities are being
multiplied by breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet
of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology,
materials science, energy storage, and quantum computing."

Both of these quotes, and the idea that we have reached a new era
as a result of the combinatorial nature of digital building blocks, begs the
question of what does this mean for for our organizations today? The
answer can be found in the Lego block.

Legos come in standardized shapes, sizes and integration points
that allow for the rapid build of billions of different combinations. The
standardization of Lego blocks doesn't restrict our ability to create new and
unique combinations, rather it enhances it. Organizations must recognize that
the winners of today and tomorrow are not organizations that create their own
bespoke building blocks, but that have the vision to use standardized digital
building blocks to offer unique combinations faster than their opponents.

Follow Kevin
Benedict on Twitter @krbenedict, connect with him on LinkedIn or
read more of his articles on digital transformation strategies here:

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Consumer behaviors are changing at
speeds never before seen in many industries, which is impacting how businesses
operate and bring products to market. In fact, more than a dozen retailers have
closed this year as a result of having business and IT systems, and supply
chains that are unable to meet the speed requirements of digital consumers.
Most companies report they have IT systems in their inventory that are too
slow or incapable of supporting real-time digital consumers. That spells
trouble. Consumer and competitive changes are forcing enterprises to
rethink their strategies in order to speed up in just about all areas: R&D,
manufacturing, distribution, marketing, and sales.

Enterprises that I speak with today
seem to understand that the need for digital transformation is being driven by
advances in mobile technologies, automation, cloud computing, sensors, big data
analytics and artificial intelligence. They realize they must
upgrade their IT systems and business processes to accommodate these changes
and increase the speed of their operations. They are also focused on how
to improve their agility and flexibility, so they are nimble enough to respond
to changing consumer behaviors, tastes and new competitors. Many
companies today find themselves in a position where their past investments in
IT systems, that once provided competitive advantages, are now anchors
preventing them from moving into the future.

Achieving real-time operational speeds
is required to support real-time digital interactions and experiences.
Supporting these real-time experiences is more than just a technology
issue, it requires companies to support real-time analytics, decision-making
and business operational tempos. An operational tempo, in the context of this
article, is defined as the speed or pace of business operations. Achieving a
faster operational tempo is a significant challenge for many. This is why
we are seeing more applications of real-time analytics, automation and
artificial intelligence.

Changing an enterprise’s operational
tempo requires strong leadership that can transform the entire organization. It
often requires significant IT updates and upgrades, organizational changes, and
reengineering business processes and decision-making matrixes to align with
real-time demands.

The biggest challenge for legacy
companies today, is how to move to real-time.

On
the 20th of July I will be leading an online discussion with
the CIO WaterCooler on "Sequencing Digital Technologies for Competitive
Advantages Over the Next 40 Months of Digital Transformation".

At
my Digital Boardroom we will be discussing that we (consumers) have all changed
as a result of digital and mobile technologies and platforms. Enterprises must
now follow and transform, in order to support these changes and compete fast
enough to matter. If you agree with this premise, then an important question to
ask is what sequence should digital technologies be implemented in order to maximize
the ROI from digital transformation investments? Another important question is
what enterprise business and IT doctrines should guide organizations through
this transformation. These important questions and others will be discussed,
and research findings shared. (Digital Boardrooms typically take approx. 45min)